When I was 17, I left Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx and went into advertising. I joined Warwick Welsh and Miller as an Assistant Print Production Manager. (A pretty glamorous title for a kid whose main job was to file proofs and letterpress plates, and maybe set some type if my bosses were busy.) I was so wet behind the ears that I dripped down the hallway every day on the way to my desk.

I knew I didn’t know much. And I knew that learning was going to take a lot of mentoring, and part of my mission was to find a few smart people kind enough to teach me the ropes. It would be slow, but… what was the alternative?

Turns out, the answer hadn’t been invented yet. Fast forward about 30 years.

Plugging into Twitter and FriendFeed and following smart people is like getting a daily lightning bolt MBA. So many new ideas and so many new perspectives (sometimes a half dozen at a time) that it’s quite literally dizzying.

If you haven’t yet been baptized in the “River of Noise”, it’s time to get religion. Feel free to follow me on FriendFeed or Twitter and follow who I follow. Click the links and you’ll see exactly who I’m following.

Maybe I’ll Tweet something useful for you. Maybe I won’t. But I can guarantee you’ll be smarter if you follow who I follow.